Pergatory You're Not There
by Marenfic
Summary: Set Post-Not Fade Away. Witness protection, of sorts where Clare Cordelia isn't quite as dead as everyone thinks. She's not the only one.


You're dead, walking, the walking dead. You're not a ghost, or a zombie, or a phantom (not bricked in, not like that). You believe in those things, know they exist with the kind of certainty that can only come from experience, or madness, or both. You're too special, too beautiful to be crazy so you pretend to be normal and try to forget your past.

(You're bricked in. Just not like that.)

*

Clare had been in Dallas for over a year, but it still felt foreign to her. It wasn't like home at all, and most of the time that was a good thing. She'd come here to escape all that, come here to start over and put the first twenty-four years of her life behind her.

Clare was determined, a force to be reckoned with, and she wasn't as naïve as she had been the first time she'd tried to start over. She found a decent paying job that didn't require her to spread her legs to get hired and an apartment that was small but completely roach-free. That first year she'd worked as many hours as she could, saved every spare penny. Her heart hadn't quite healed yet so she didn't date, but she adopted a cat to share her apartment and keep her company. It took away a little of the loneliness, gave her something on which to blame all the little noises in her apartment in the middle of the night. She bought a gun to take care of any of the noises the cat couldn't explain.

She didn't want to forget her past so much as she wanted her past to forget her. Both would be good, but she'd settle for the latter. She was hardly going to go all ostrich, though. Clare took lessons with the gun and got a permit to carry. She bought the least tacky cross she could find and wore it around her neck, day and night.

Weapons and crosses, these were the accessories of her former life. But here in the gun-happy Bible-Belt they were the accessories of normality, too.

*

Your past is buried (in a gaping mouth of dirt, in a tumble of rock in a city block), but not deeply enough. They won't let you forget it.

Forget being a ghost. You're not a ghost.

But maybe you're a puppet.

*

A year and a half of saving and Clare had enough for a down payment on a small house on a cul-de-sac. The neighborhood was a cookie-cutter subdivision like all the others that crowded the suburbs of Dallas, concentric circles of new houses with open floor plans and tiny yards that made it impossible not to get to know your neighbors. Clare's were mostly young couples on their first marriages in their first homes, some with their first babies. They had barbecues together, ate red meat and drank beer and talked about their lives like there was actually something interesting to say about them.

After all this time, Clare still wasn't sure she felt like this was her life. Sometimes, right after she'd woken up but before she was really awake, she didn't know what she'd see when she opened her eyes. There was a certain panic to that, but anticipation too. The same sight greeted her every morning. The grayish-blue of her bedroom walls, the stark white of her comforter, Emma the cat, purring on the pillow next to Clare's.

The panic always faded then. The anticipation, too.

There was no hiding from her social obligations here, not the way they practically lived on top of one another. Clare didn't even really want to hide. All this time with only her cat for company and sometimes Clare needed the human contact.

Her neighbors were like just about everyone else she'd met here. They seemed to be stuck in high school, some kind of arrested development where all the men could talk about was football and all the women could talk about was each other. The fact that they did it in a sweet Texas twang didn't make it any less cruel. Clare didn't have the twang, but she was an expert at the game. When Melissa went inside to get another beer, Clare shot a pointed glance at her butt, lifted an eyebrow and said,

"I hope she brought some _light_ beer."

She knew that when it was her turn to walk away, the claws were particularly sharp. Clare was single and way too pretty to trust around bored suburban husbands. It didn't matter that she'd rather take a long walk down a dark alley at midnight than fuck any of those cretins. The fact that she existed in such close proximity was threat enough.

They started trying to set her up with their single coworkers. When Clare turned down their offers, they stopped asking. Random guys began showing up to the neighborhood gatherings. She tolerated the attempted match-making until the third guy they brought over got drunk and tried to follow her back to her house.

She complained to Jen, told her to stop with the blind-siding her with blind dates.

"We just want you to find a nice guy, Clare. Jesus. I'm beginning to think you must be gay." Jen rolled her eyes, annoyance written over her features. She didn't really think that, Clare knew. Lesbians were as mythical to these people as vampires.

Clare skipped the next barbecue. She wasn't a virgin, or a prude. It had been a very long time since she'd been touched and she missed it, the feeling of hands larger and rougher than her own on her body. But she wasn't some spineless wimp either, and no former Dallas high school football cheerleader was going to bully her into dating a loser just so she could sleep easier at night next to her husband.

*

They told you this was your reward. They gave you a choice of death (real or fake, not much of a choice). You chose life (real or fake?).

If you knew, would you choose it again?

*

The next few gatherings were loser-hookup free, so Clare relaxed. She let down her guard. The weather was getting too cool for barbecues, so she invited everyone over for cocktails and cards. The guests started arriving and Clare was careful not to invite anyone inside but by now they all feel like her house is just an extension of their own anyway.

They were almost finished with the first round of drinks when her doorbell chimed. Clare knew it was Melissa and Derek and she caught herself right before she yelled at them to come on in. She walked to the door, turned her head to laugh at something Jen had said, and when she turned back around to greet her guests, she found her past standing on her doorstep.

Clare's stomach dropped. They'd found her. She didn't know how, but this man wasn't supposed to be here. Her eyes locked with his. She saw the surprise, then, the panic there in the bright blue.

Maybe he hadn't found her, then. Maybe she'd found him.

"Sorry we're late, Clare. This is Jack. He and Derek have been working together on a case and they both needed a break tonight. . ."

Melissa's voice droned on, but Clare only had eyes for. . . Jack.

*

He is not Jack. You are not Clare. Jack did not try to have Clare killed. He is not a bad man, working for bad people (things). You make excuses to let the past back into your life because you miss it (you shouldn't) and because you're bored and lonely (everyone is, that's normal).

You're pathetic.

*

"Why are you here? Did _they_ send you?"

"I could ask the same of you. Is _he_ here somewhere?"

They spoke in tense code, even though they were alone. Habit, or maybe a superstitious belief that if they spoke the names of their shared past it would break what was left of the future. Everyone else had left, the women sending Clare _looks_, raised eyebrows and little winks that let her know how easy they truly thought she was.

She didn't have any intention of sleeping with him. She thought about her gun and wondered if she could actually kill him.

"I thought you were dead."

It was an accusation, like Clare was breaking some promise by breathing the heavy air between them. The stress in his voice accented the low-pitched Southern drawl that had intensified since the last time she'd heard him speak. His shoulders were tense, the muscles of his arms under the long-sleeved shirt straining tight against the fabric as he clenched his hands. Clare knew then, believed, that he was not here for her, just as she knew that he believed she _was_ there for him.

She could have explained, put him at ease, but Clare didn't owe him anything. She owed him less than nothing.

"I didn't think about you at all."

Jack's eyes narrowed at the haughty indifference in her voice and then suddenly he relaxed, like she had flipped a switch, like she pulled a plug that let all of the tension and fear inside him drain away. Clare had forgotten how well he could read people, how he could hear the things they didn't say. She wasn't a threat to him

He broke her gaze and looked around the living room, at her overstuffed furniture and the prints she had hung on the wall and the mantle over her fireplace that was carefully devoid of any personal photos. Clare saw it through his eyes. It was model-home perfect, and just as generic. It looked empty.

This was her life.

"What are you really doing here?"

Clare thought about lying, but she wasn't a liar. That was true, and funny, considering the lie she'd been living for the past two years. There didn't seem to be a point, anyway. He'd see through it.

"Starting over, retiring, whatever. These are the fruits of my pension plan. My _crappy_ pension plan. What about you?"

Jack smiled, but it was empty. "You got a pension. I got one last chance at penance."

*

There are no accidents. You are not a ghost, and neither is he (though he should be). You are not a puppet, either. You might be a chess piece, if chess was what They played (it's not, too mundane).

They won't let you forget your past, but They won't let him forget either so you can't even be mad at him.

That pisses you off.

*

They agreed to stay away from one another. Jack was an assistant D.A. with the county and they kept him busy. The photographer Clare worked for finally trusted her enough to take on jobs of her own, so she was busy too. She started making excuses to skip the neighborhood gatherings when Melissa and Jen wouldn't shut up about why she wasn't dating Jack. It wasn't the loss she had feared it would be.

She thought about him more than she should. He had seemed so different, quieter, less cocky and more confident. He had looked her in the eye when they talked and it hadn't been a game or a challenge, just an honesty that had never been there when they were on different sides. There was no doubt that she found him attractive. She always had. But he'd never invaded her thoughts before, uninvited. Clare wondered how much of his sudden appeal was about him and how much of it was about missing the past.

Clare tried to concentrate on her work instead and found some enjoyment in looking at the world through her lens. It was like having visions again, only this time they were filled with other people's happiness instead of pain. She looked through her camera and captured the beauty she saw there. It was good, but it wasn't enough. She felt restless.

Clare's work filled the mantles of her client's homes. Her mantle was still empty. She sat on her couch and stared at the crappy metaphor of her new life.

A roll of thunder made the air around her shudder and Clare jumped, her gaze shifting from her fireplace to the window. The darkness of the night was split with lightning, the product of a classic Texas winter thunderstorm, and Clare looked around to make sure the cat had made it in from the rain.

The unexpected chime of the doorbell made her jump again. She rolled her eyes at herself and went to answer the door. The darkness made it impossible to see who was on the other side of the peephole, so she turned on the outside light.

It was Jack, dripping wet and looking lost. Clare wasn't surprised. It was like some part of her had known he would come back, like she'd just been waiting for it to happen. She also knew that this was one of those moments, that opening the door would change things for her again.

Clare breathed out slowly and opened the door. Jack looked at her with something desperate in his blue blue eyes.

"Help me," he said, "I don't think I can do this alone." and Clare didn't hesitate. She grabbed his jacket, pulled him inside and nudged the door shut behind him.

His lips were warm, wet from the rain as much as anything else as she slanted her mouth over his. Jack stood still, unmoving for a beat in time and Clare was about to pull away when he made sound low in his throat and gripped her upper arms to pull her closer. Her hands were trapped against his chest, under the lapels of his jacket and she could feel the pounding of his heart under one palm. Jack's fingers trailed up her neck, tangled in her long hair, and he angled her head, deepened the kiss with the press of his tongue against hers.

Later, but not much, Clare arched under him, rolled her hips and gasped against his mouth as he palmed one heavy breast. She was full of him, stretched full with her past and maybe her future and when he shifted his angle and thrust into her strong and deep she closed her eyes and smiled.

She couldn't remember the last time she felt this alive.

*

You are not Cordelia. He is not Lindsey. Those people are dead to everyone but themselves (and maybe each other).

You are not free. You don't want to be. You help lost souls (you help the helpless).

Maybe you're a lost soul too.


End file.
